Blame for ‘Anarchy’ Shifted to Militias from Khartoum

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UNITED NATIONS – As the Sudanese region of Darfur descends into “a state of anarchy,” the pressure against Khartoum was lowered yesterday as blame was increasingly shifted away from the government and its mostly Arab proxy militias and “both sides” were accused instead.


Secretary-General Annan’s personal envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, told the council that Arab militias known as Janjaweed are no longer under Khartoum’s full control. Their opponents in the rebel movement have split, he added, with some leaders fighting for personal gains. “We may soon find Darfur is ruled by warlords,” he told the council.


“The rebels have legitimate grudges,” Mr. Pronk told The New York Sun. The world has understood that and gave them “moral support.” However, “If the rebel movement would like to take over as a would-be government, then you have to live up to exactly the same rules and international standards as a government,” he added.


The council has implicitly threatened sanctions against the government of Sudan if it failed to stop aiding atrocities. But as the rebels are blamed almost equally, Khartoum’s supporters say it should be taken off the hook.


“Now there is even less reasons to accuse or condemn the Sudanese government,” Russian ambassador Andrey Denisov told the Sun. “In this particular case we see that the rebels are provoking, and it’s a vicious circle.”


The rebels have been “emboldened” recently, Darfur activist and former State Department official John Prendergast told the Sun. Nevertheless, the world “must begin to back up existing Security Council resolutions, which have been flouted by the government, by imposing punitive measures on the regime for those violations.”


American ambassador John Danforth rejected accusations that the council has failed to act decisively. “People are killing, raping, pillaging, and removing people from one place to another without their permission,” he said. This is not the fault of “people living halfway around the world.”


Secretary of State Powell has defined the Janjaweed atrocities as genocide, and Mr. Danforth said Khartoum has been “involved directly in acts against civilian populations.” Nevertheless, he told the Sun, “no side has clean hands” in Darfur. “All sides have responsibility to fix the problem.”


As America assumed the presidency of the Security Council for the month of November this week, Mr. Danforth announced a rare trip of the 15-member body to Nairobi, Kenya, where they would oversee peace talks for Sudan, in the hope that a pact between the north and south parts of the country, which have been battling for over a decade, would create a calming effect in the western region of Darfur as well.


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